


In Between Days

by stopmopingstarthoping



Series: When I Let Go Of Your Heart [2]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst, M/M, Post-Canon, World of Ruin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-04
Updated: 2019-06-04
Packaged: 2020-04-07 12:58:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19085524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stopmopingstarthoping/pseuds/stopmopingstarthoping
Summary: Ignis receives an unexpected gift, and ends up facing a difficult truth.





	In Between Days

When one of the hunters hands them to him, Ignis knows what they are. The worn patterns on the handles, the swinging braided tassels that hurt so much with their reminiscence. He knows, and he's so grateful but he can't speak, can't get out even the bare minimum in thanks, just a stiff nod before he strides away.

He walks too fast and the crunch of gravel gives way to the uneven pad of grass before he expects it. Ignis doesn't trip, exactly—thank the Six, he rarely does that anymore, but there is a hitch in his step.

The hunter didn't know; couldn't have known - it's just that any relatively good-quality set of short blades tends to find its way to Ignis eventually. For evaluation, repair if needed, distribution: formal words that echo uselessly in his mind. Giving him these had been thoughtful and thoughtless at once; unknowingly. Ignis grips both handles in one hand and his chest squeezes, hard. He hears the faint rattle of leafless tree branches overhead and stops—reaches his unburdened hand out until it's touching the rough, uneven texture of the trunk.

He wonders idly if the tree is still alive, how long any of the trees dotting the landscape will hold on, how long he can hold on, if all of them can hold out. He wonders how dark it is, and sits down next to the tree, back leaned against its bark, blades dangling loosely from slack fingers.

Ignis doesn’t want memories. Not now. But they squeeze and press at the corners of his mind anyway, and he grips the blades tighter as he shoves the heel of his empty hand against his less-damaged eye. The reel spins, and the various emotions clutch at his chest, the unreal feeling that those moments won’t return spearing him with every revolution.

Astrals, they’d loved each other. Ignis lets himself fully take that in, and soak him with the regret of never saying it. As he lets Nyx's name, face, voice take shape in his memory, the dam bursts.

He sits by himself for a long time after that.  The kukris are still gripped in one hand mindlessly, like he’s forgotten how to let go of them.

He wants to talk about this with Prompto, or Gladio, but he knows he won't. It isn't fair to throw them, too, back into the days before all this, when a war beyond the Wall was what weighed on them, before they lost their best friend, before the war came seeping, bleeding in at all the edges until it was everywhere, all the time. Reminiscing hurts too much, and he won't put them through that. And no one else would know, would truly understand what he and Nyx had been to each other, and tears fall again. Quieter this time, without the wracking sobs.

It hurts so much to think of Nyx in past tense, but that's all he has now. It’s done, and behind him, and ahead is just a gaping chasm of hurt and loneliness.

 

Ignis remembers the day he found out - the day they all found out. The only other time he’d given in to this depth of emotion on his own behalf. After those initial, terrible moments of disbelief, when Ignis had had to reach for every ounce of strength, everything he’d ever learned to strike the right balance of decisive and kind (and still feel like he’d gotten it wrong, but everything was wrong), had had to fold the raw horror of his own life somewhere deep inside him.

Gladio’s hollow stare had haunted him. Ignis knew him well enough to have watched the struggle between pain and duty play out in the infinitesimal twitches around his eyes and the catches in his voice.  Even his posture had been different, in a way that would have been imperceptible to anyone who hadn’t grown up in the Citadel, grown up with the backdrop of politics and war and duty as main characters in their lives, not a meaningless headline. Not a new concept for Gladio by any means, but it had become real in a way it had never been before. Mors’ reign, and the one before, had been peaceful enough not to require a Shield’s sacrifice. Clarus’ death, painful as it was in its own right, had left Gladio as the elder Amicitia—at twenty-three; had shadowed Gladio’s own mortality, the difficult purpose to which his life was dedicated. Both their lives, really.

Noctis had been quietly inconsolable. It had been the hardest part for Ignis. If Noctis had just lashed out, or broken down, or just let him in, anywhere— but he had been quiet and cold and contained, and despite the irony given his own personality, this had hurt Ignis perhaps more than anything. Ignis had remained calm himself, gripping the steering wheel as tightly as he could to avoid raising his voice, forcing it out of him. They had talked to each other stiffly, without looking at each other.

It had been Prompto in the end, at the end of the first week after the Fall. Ignis had found Prompto sniffling by himself at a picnic table near their caravan. Not full-on sobs, just the occasional tear-track and hiccup. Ignis had approached, softly, just sitting next to Prompto for a few moments before asking if he could help. None of them  had asked each other what was wrong by then; the question had taken on an almost humorously insipid flavor.

Prompto had turned to him, and a crooked smile had grown and cracked and fallen as soon as it had appeared. “It’s stupid,” he’d said in that self-effacing way he had.

Ignis had inclined his head in acknowledgement, but not agreement. “I’m sure it’s not.” He’d selfishly felt better, helping Prompto, focusing on something other than the maelstrom of disaster that haunted all their steps (it hadn’t felt good, nothing felt _good_ , it was a distraction from horror).

Prompto had fiddled with his hair, looked off at the horizon, looked back at Ignis.

“We’ve all lost people—and I feel so fucking _stupid_ about this, but…”

Ignis had just nodded.

“I...had a goldfish. And, well, my neighbor agreed to take care of him. And now—”

By then, they had probably both been gone for days.

“I feel so stupid crying about a fucking _goldfish_ , I’m sorry, it’s just that I got thinking about it and—”

Ignis had held his hand up at Prompto to try to get him to stop talking; it had been like his words had swept a curtain back and made Ignis confront his own reality. He’d tried to stand up, to walk away. Prompto had cut himself off, looking at Ignis with alarm, and Ignis had realized he must be acting oddly.

Three faltering steps, and he was down. Something had cut the strings behind Ignis’ knees, and from a distant place Ignis felt himself sit down hard in the dirt. His hands wouldn’t function to cover his face, so he buried it in an elbow. Painful sobs had clawed their way through Ignis’ chest and squeezed his throat on the way out; he’d gasped for air, and none of it had brought any relief.

Six days had been a long time, when emotion had threatened constantly to break the surface and had had to be forced back down. Long, and tiring, and every single one of those struggles had suddenly emerged. Ignis recalled that he’d made truly embarrassing sounds, and somewhere outside himself he had realized it, especially once he’d felt Prompto’s tentative pat on his back.

He’d thanked every single one of the Six twice over that Gladio and Noctis had been away collecting supplies and not there to see it. Ignis had been sure he was a puffy-faced wreck when they returned, and that had been bad enough.

 

That had been three years ago, and Ignis had thought it would get easier; but then, he thought he’d truly accepted that Nyx was gone. But clearly he hadn’t. One of those tiny strings of hope had been there, too thin to detect, stretching back across distance and time. Subconscious imaginings of a lone Glaive limping out of a city’s wreckage, finding his way through a newly darkened and dangerous world.

Bullshit fantasy, as it turns out.

Nyx would never have been without these kukris, and Ignis knows it. The last string, cut neatly by a curved, sharp blade, and Ignis’ constant darkness somehow seems even darker than before.

**Author's Note:**

> Series title and inspiration from [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Rj3S0KnWJ4).


End file.
